Checkable Health Podcast

Checkable Health Podcast


EP19 Part 1: What You Need to Know About Men's Health Dr. Brahmbhatt

July 14, 2022

Shownotes

Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt is a urologist and robotic surgeon who is an outspoken advocate for men’s health and wellness. He currently works as the Director of the Personalized Urology & Robotics Clinic at Orlando Health and is a board member of the Florida Urological Society. Dr. Brahmbhatt wants to change the way men value their own health by making an impact on social norms and ideas that influence our perceptions of our health.


In this two-part series with Dr. Brahmbhatt, we cover various topics, such as infertility in men, why it’s so important to encourage men to go in for a doctor’s visit, and steroid use in teenagers. Stay tuned for the second half of this series for more information on men’s health with Dr. Brahmbhatt!


Key Takeaways

  • Male infertility, what causes it, and what you can do
  • Myths of urology and urologists
  • The importance of engaging men with the healthcare system and tactics to do it
  • Steroid use in teenagers and what to look for


For more resources, check out our website.

For Dr. Brahmbhatt’s clinic website: https://purclinic.com/

Follow Dr. Brahmbhatt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjaminb/


Trandscript:


0:00:00.1 S1: Enjoy the first part of a two-part series with Dr. B. Our health is the most important thing that we have and as a married woman of almost 19 years to my dear husband, Andrew and mother of two boys and daughter of my dad, Bill, who's 81, I am acutely aware of the fact that men don't go into the doctor and they don't seek care. In fact, I have an uncle that saw the doctor once in his entire life and died at age 86 of a heart attack while he was climbing a mountain. Men typically have a hard time going into the doctor, and this podcast is for all of you women that care about the men in your life. Whether that's your sons, your dads, your husbands, your brothers, your spouse, your partner. We are covering everything with Dr. Brahmbhatt, a urologist at Orlando Health. We're covering everything from steroid use to infertility, to depression, to prostate exams, to identifying any kidney problems, and what’s the best way to see a physician. We are covering the gamut. Doctor B is incredibly approachable, relatable, he makes things funny and the reason I had this podcast was for all of you ladies that are the caregivers of the men that we love, and it's good to recognize the symptoms, and it's good to be encouraging to our men that we love.


0:01:34.8 S1: With that, let's get into the interview today, you're gonna learn lots, take some notes, I'm gonna have all the show notes with the links of the products that he recommends, and as well as a link to follow Dr. B on LinkedIn and TikTok. And I just hope that you leave with some new ideas on how to incorporate health and wellness into their lives. So with that, let's get into the episode. 


0:02:06 S2: Welcome to the Wellness Essentials Podcast, where we invite you to join the conversation and get inspired to be in the driver’s seat of your health and well-being. On this podcast, you'll get an all-access pass inside the minds of MDs, experts and thought leaders in the industry. No topic is off-limits, and we're asking the questions to get you the answers across the gamut of topics when it comes to optimizing your health. This is the WE Podcast.


0:02:44 S1: Hello everyone, this is Patty Post. Today, I'm your host of the Checkable Health Podcast. We have rebranded everyone, we were the Wellness Essentials Podcast, now we’re the Checkable Health Podcast as we are powered by Checkable Medical, but Checkable Health makes more sense because at Checkable Health, we create content that is for mothers that have a core value of health and wellness for themselves and their families.


0:03:15.3 S1: So on the Checkable Health Podcast today, my guest is Dr. Brahmbhatt, who is a urologist with Orlando Health. Dr. B, thank you so much for joining me.


0:03:27.0 S2: Producer, cue round of applause. Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity, and if you can't hear me, it's not my fault, it's Patty's fault.


0:03:41.5 S1: This is our take two for, I wish we could have that. That first performance was so good we had such a great connection and our goodbyes, it wasn't like a goodbye forever, we actually did have a great connection, so I'm very thankful that you're coming back on the podcast again. Thank you.


0:03:59.5 S2: Thank you. And last time my skin was perfect, I did my hair. This time I have acne on my face, but it's okay, I'm doing it for you, Patty. So, no seriously, all jokes aside I appreciate being on. We had a great conversation, and we can have that same conversation again and go on and on and on, and I look forward to it.


0:04:16.7 S1: So I didn't do my hair either, my hair's slicked down and I have a little bit of acne myself, so I just, we're gonna feel comfortable. We're amongst friends here. And that happens in life. Right. If you're a CEO, if you're a doctor, if you're a teacher, life goes on when you have these blemishes, right?


0:04:34 It does. And actually, I actually have been more on TikTok lately, actually, as a creator, and my content sucks, but I've just been kind of playing around with the software, and then I'm like, “Holy moly”, I had this like epiphany. They have so many filters, like I remember Snapchat filters, Instagram filters, but you go on TikTok, there's video filters, photo filters like, I can look white, black, my skin could change, my skin could be perfect, I could be toned, I could look skinny. So this whole time for the past year during COVID, I've been wasting time on TikTok, but if TikTok ever sponsors me, TikTok, I don't think it's a waste of time, I appreciate it, but it makes you realize nothing is real nowadays, like nothing at all. So this is the real me, whether you can see it or not, and you can definitely hear it, and I think we should embrace ourselves. I think that's what's lacking, and I think that's why we have you checking us and keeping us some honest here.


0:05:32 S1: Getting you on video.


0:05:34 S2:. I think what everyone in the audience needs to realize is that everything may be really produced and sound so great and you'll add music, but Patty here, is not only an entrepreneur and trying to change the world with her test and everything else, but she has kids, a dog, and then she has this backdrop, that's almost half falling off, but that's the reality is, it's actually Nurses Week and Healthcare Awareness Week, and I always try to give all the females that work in my office an extra kudos, I don't, I don't gender equal, I don't wanna get in trouble here, but it's amazing how you can be a mother, a wife and run what you're doing. I barely get up from my office and, so it is pretty cool, and I don't think you share it out, I think you should show your real you because of stuff, what you do is not easy, but you make it look easy.


0:06:30.2 S1: Well, thank you for saying that. I think with, the women, why this podcast have gotten really narrow with my audience of women, mothers specifically, because we do care for our families, we care for ourselves, we care for our husbands, we care for partners, kids, and a lot of times our parents, which you had mentioned to me that your in-laws are coming, I think that we just naturally, we're gifted as being nurturers, we’re inclusive, we’re nurturing, we’re empathetic, and sometimes it can be a burden that we carry. I think that it is a blessing to the world that there are women because we are like that, so I bet the women in your office like rally around you and take care of you. Is that true?


0:07:19.1 S2: They do, they actually do. They know when I'm stressed out. They know when I haven’t eaten anything. They go get me what I need, they can control my schedule up ahead, it's pretty amazing, like I am, so, I don't wanna say babied, but we have such a good mutually beneficial relationship, it truly is amazing. But you know what's also amazing is, I'm actually glad we’re recording this now, 'cause you mentioned, we were talking about girl power and I have three daughters, so I'm all about it. But you know what's really interesting that really irks me is that Infertility Awareness Week is usually the same week as Mother's Day. It just kills me. You may not know this, but I think in May, it's Infertility Awareness Day or Awareness Week, and then you have Mother's Day and yes, this is geared towards mothers, but you may have people listening that want to be mothers and they're struggling. I actually sub specialize in infertility, the male side of infertility, and I would say dealing with a couple that has infertility is harder than diagnosing metastatic cancer in some cases, because it's such an emotional journey. But that being said, going back to the whole thing, I know I'm going off on a tangent, but I...


0:08:26.5 S2: I think it’s important to say, going back to the whole thing about what the realities of life are and how social media can really affect you, the first thing I put in my plan with these patients and these couples is get off social media and get off forms and stop reading. Because that, when you go online and hear about someone throwing a balloon off a helicopter to see if it's a boy or girl and doing these gender parties and they're going on vacation before they have a kid or celebrating birthdays, it can really take a big toll on you as a couple, and believe it or not, it's not your age, in many cases, it's not your habits, it's really stress, stress is one of the top risk factors for infertility, whether it's male or female, and what is the biggest stressor in our life, I would say right now, it's probably what we're looking at with their eyes and swiping with our fingers, which is social media, so I just wanted to kind of at least do some education with this girl power conversation that I started off and give you kudos, all the women out there that are trying to become mothers, and all the mothers out there, I think everyone deserves a big kudos.


0:09:28.1 S1: I couldn't agree more. We just had a podcast episode about infertility and the struggles with infertility and what couples go through, and then loss of children as well.


0:09:41.1 S2: Is this your way of telling me change topic of conversation, 'cause we've already talked about it?


0:09:44.8 S1: No, not at all. I think that it is very important, and actually as opening, as I said, that we're narrowing the audience and really Checkable Health, a subject can be covered a dozen to 212 different ways, especially medically speaking, you can get very deep and get into medical terminology, and there's a lot of people out there that really wanna get that medical terminology, so as we continue to grow this podcast, we aren't gonna touch on one subject a single time, we'll touch on it multiple times, and I think hearing it from you as a urologist, hearing that as a father and an employer, it really resonates with me because topics shouldn't just be covered once and the content that we're creating, I want people to take their walk for 45 minutes and hear from a physician or a clinician or subject matter expert on something of their health that they didn't know prior to listening to it, it's entertaining, but more educational. 


0:10:52.8 S2: So in this case for the women out there, going and getting an evaluation for infertility is extremely difficult, it's kinda like, “Where do I go?” So you as a female may be trying, trying, trying, and then you go to your gynecologist or obstetrician, and then from there, you may have to go to a specialist, usually the dude is the last person that's looked at it. But the reality is 50% of infertility is male factor-related and 50% is female factor-related, and so what's really changed in my field is a lot of the stuff that we do on dudes when they initially come see us, some of it’s actually now in your own hands. So I got reminded of this, 'cause what you're trying to do, you're trying to do a home test that you can make healthcare more accessible for kids and families, in the same way we can actually make your guy's fertility status much more accessible and in your hands, no pun intended here ‘cause I’m gonna tell you what I'm talking about. So you can actually check a full semen analyses. So when we see a couple for infertility, I just do what the guy...


0:11:57.8 S2: If the guy has a problem and if he doesn't have a problem or we don't know what's going on, we try to discover it. He comes in, we get a history, a physical. If he's smoking weed, we tell him to stop. If he’s smoking, we tell him to stop. He's overweight, we tell him to exercise, but then we get into nitty-gritty, so we check the testicles and then we'll order some labs, we check hormones in testosterone, but the biggest thing that we do is a semen analysis, and that's where we actually take the entire ejaculate and look for sperm counts, and just all these details that we look at, that used to be miserable to do, you have to go to a lab and you’re usually put in a toilet somewhere, sometimes a shared toilet, and you gotta go and wank off without lube or anything. And then you gotta rush that thing, but that's actually changed now, and I'm not paid by this company, I just think it's pretty cool what they're doing similar to what you're doing, is at home semen analysis test. They used to be like a gimmick, but the research, there's a research article that came out in a big name Journal of Urology, where they said that this at home test is one of the first tests that…


0:12:55.7 S2: Is probably just as good as what you would do in my office. And that you can just buy online on your own, I think it's called meetfellow.com or meetfellow. You can just Google it, I don't know the exact thing, but it's been a game changer. My compliance rate with my patients, 'cause I just tell them, “Hey, just do it at home” has skyrocketed up, but you can actually do that if you're like, “Hey, you know what, we haven't started yet, but hey, let's just track or…”


0:13:18.0 S2: If you have a concern, you can do that, and then your labs, you can actually just get your primary care doctor do it when you're seeing them and get the routine stuff, so you can kind of do the basic stuff on your own, and a lot of couples don't realize that, and that's where the fertility part gets delayed, and then you go from being 30 to 35 to 36, and then realizing your dude, his swimmers aren't swimming. You can start doing that early, that's just a little tip to avoid any hopefully frustrations for you guys if you're trying to conceive.


0:13:46.8 S1: And emotionally for the female, we carry that burden of the infertility, like “Oh, it’s me”, and then you get all of the ovulation tests and you're balancing your… 


0:14:02.6 S2: Patty, I’m gonna stop right there. I'm gonna stop right there. Those ovulation tests are the…I don't wanna say anything 'cause I don't wanna get yelled at, but they're like, they're horrible. Yes, yes, you can measure and see when you're most fertile. Today, I saw two couples in fertility, one of them, they only have sex for three days the whole month.


0:14:16.7 S1: Oh, jeez.


0:14:17.0 S2: Right around that peak, and I'm like, “Dude, you should still be doing it”. So what I tell my couples is like, “Screw that ovulation thing and just do it every other day”, and my dudes, my dudes are like “Yeah!”


0:14:29.3 S2: “Did you hear that? Can we do it three times a day?” But…


0:14:33.4 S2: It becomes like a, it's just so sad because you're gonna be spending thousands of dollars and if you gotta do all these hormones and testing, you're gonna be spending, you're gonna be putting all these chemicals inside of you, when all you gotta do is enjoy each other's company every other day, don't try to be so perfect with the statistic, so yes, it's ovulation test and apps. They're great, if you're doing it great, but man, don't forget about each other and why you guys are together. It's not about having a baby, it's about that intimacy in that relationship, and so enjoy it, Enjoy it. A bang for your buck, as I say. That's gonna be edited out.


0:15:10.9 S1: There are so many, what was the one that you said, “Screw that”, when you start with this. Exactly, you should be screwing more if you want, if you wanna get pregnant. Right, and it shouldn't be so stressful. So with that said of a urologist, let's stop for a second, because some people might not have ever seen a urologist, and I'll back it up another step, I'm actually having you on because as a wife, I have to do the encouragement and sometimes even the calling for doctor's appointments or, I have someone that, lovely works for me, and sometimes she makes embarrassing appointments for my family, but that is my, I feel like it's my role. So for my husband, we're looking for a new doctor for him. I'll set up appointments for him, you need to go do this, and then he just goes, and he doesn't set anything up for himself, and I would like to hear about one, What your view is on the frequency that a male should be seen by their physician, and two, when do you see a urologist? Because it's a specialty. And what does the urologist do? 


0:16:29.3 S2: So first, the myths. Urologists only take care of men, no. I would say my practice, about 70% men, 30% females. Second myth is that we only take care of old dudes that can't remember half the stuff they're doing. That is not true, like I see everyone from 18 to 100. The third myth is that you have to always see a primary doctor first to see a urologist. I'm gonna be careful on demystifying that myth, you should always have a primary care doctor first, that is like your quarterback or your coach that navigate, that coach that navigates everything. We are a sub-specialty, but I'm actually seeing more and more, especially young millennial men, just bypass whole system and come see me directly, and then they want me to do all this screening testing, and I think some doctors like me won't accept them, but I just say, “Okay, listen, if we have an opening, let's take them”, and then I'll do the routine urology stuff they're concerned about but I will stress the need for a primary care doctor and I will actually, on their follow-up notes, notate that that's part of the plan is they have to commit to getting a primary care doctor, so I kinda use it as a way to...


0:17:38.4 S2: Yes, get them what they need from a urology standpoint, usually some candy like Viagra, Cialis or they're worried about their testosterone, but then I make sure that they get engaged with someone else, so urologists are surgeons of the genitourinary tract, so we deal with all the medical and surgical issues from the kidneys and to the tip of the penis, or the tip of the urethra in women. We do all things like kidney cancers, kidney stones, blocked tubes that go down to the bladder, bladder cancers, overactive bladder is something I'm seeing more and more and more, especially in women, and then we deal with sexual dysfunction and testicle stuff and ball pain and other things, so I personally am based, I’m nine years out of practice, I'm in Orlando, part of the Orlando Health System, and if you go to myballshurt.com, it actually comes to my website. 


0:18:30 S1: Are you serious?


0:18:31 S2 Yeah, I own about 300 domain names that all get filtered and you'd be surprised that people aren't looking for urologist in Orlando, they're like, “Man, myballshurt.com”. I have some other raunchy ones, which I'm not gonna say, but hey, it brings the people in.


0:18:46.5 S2: We actually are a sub-specialty, and it's a specialty that no one really knows about until you actually need one. I actually needed one myself when I had a kidney stone a year and a half ago. I couldn't take care of my own stone, but we do a lot, and we're actually very broad, but we are probably the specialty that's trying to get men healthy the quickest. And that's because we see problems as sometimes are irreversible, like they can no longer have erections, or now they have issues with scarring on their penis, and it's all bent another way.


0:19:16.7 S1: That sounds awful. What is that called?


0:19:19.6 S2: It's called Peyronie’s Disease, that's abnormal curvature of the penis, and the company that has a product that we inject into the scar to open it up has a really cool marketing campaign, it’s with the carrot and like a bent carrot. They didn't have that great, great marketing, but now, I'm like, “Man, this carrot thing is pretty cool”. But hey, it gets the guys in, but we do a lot and we've become kind of like the advocates for men because we have opportunities to engage men way more than other people or other specialties may. So I personally have made it a life's mission to change some of the statistics that men are dealing with in America. Men live 5 years less than their female counterparts. Men are 50% less likely to go see a doctor when they have an acute condition, men are full of excuses when it comes to why they don't wanna go see a doctor. If you look at the top 10, the top causes of death in America have changed since COVID, but if you look at, I think it's 9 out of 10, or now even maybe 10 out of 10 causes of death in America, men are more likely to die of these than women.


0:20:23.7 S2: And it's because a lot of factors, we just don't engage healthcare like we should, we think we're macho, we're afraid of the prostate exam, not everyone that comes to my office gets a prostate exam guys. So our whole thing is to get guys more healthy, and there's many different tactics to do it, but it ain't easy. Dudes are not easy to get into, and I know that because I'm a dude myself.


0:20:46.0 S1: And how do you motivate you though, because you can say something and I want a reaction right away. Like, “Well, you should go do this”. And then two days later, I'd be like, “Oh, Did you make that appointment?” “Oh no, I didn't”, and then it will be like two months and this appointment is still not made, so how do you motivate a male to see a urologist or see doctor just in general.


0:21:16.6 S2: Well, there’s, there’s many different ways, tell them he's not gonna have any dessert until he goes and sees the physician, but I think what it comes down to guys is, listen, men really don't have as many opportunities as women do to engage healthcare. So birth control is more prominent in women. When it comes to birthing years, women have to engage healthcare professionals whereas dudes, until they're having trouble peeing or their erections go down, or they're having chest pain that you really don't see a purpose, but what men need to realize is at about the age of 20, you should start going and seeing a primary care doctor. That's when you kinda get the manual for your health. Once you get that manual, everything is kind of pre-determined for you based on science and research, so whether it's a certain set of labs every five years, visits every two years or something every single year, it's all kind of catered to you based on how much you weigh, your past medical history, your parents history, your family history, so the primary care doctor is pretty good about getting that. What happens is when you go in and see your primary care doctor for the first time at 50 or 60, it's very overwhelming, 'cause you've had 50 years of life that they have to dive into, why not just form a relationship and kind of get how the healthcare systems work early and then once you got that manual, you just follow it, that's all you gotta do. It's kinda like the car, like, “Hey, I gotta change my oil here, the light goes on here, then I gotta go do this”.


0:22:47.2 S2: We through Orlando Health when we did, we have this campaign called the Drive for Men's Health, where we drive across the country every summer and we use really cool tactics to get guys talking, we actually did a survey one of those years, and we asked the question, as men, we found, remember their make and model of their first car more than when their last doctors visit was, so they know everything about their cars, but very little about their healthcare. So it's just getting them to realize, “Yo, this is a priority”, how you do that is the billion dollar question, which hopefully, we'll get someone like Elon Musk or Tim Cook to support me in my endeavors and help us figure all this stuff out much more quicker, so…


0:23:33.8 S1: I think from the comfortability, this might be a really bad example, but when my kids were learning their own anatomy, there were friends that would, “Well, we don't say vagina, we say who-who or kitty cat”. I'm like, “It's a vagina. It’s a penis. It's not your dingaling”. And they would giggle at first, and same with fifth grade, we are talking about anatomy and after you hear it a few times, you're more comfortable with it, and what resonated for me when you said women are more comfortable with the healthcare setting, especially if we've had children, then we've had to go in even just for that first child, those first visits are very uncomfortable, or when you get your first annual gyno exam. Uncomfortable, but then you're familiar. You know what it takes. And to me, when I hear erectile dysfunction, I'm thinking, “Well, how would, it's embarrassing”. And then how would you get over the hurdle of making that call of like, “Oh, I have, I might have a problem here”, and that's where the Romans and the Hims have made it where the barrier to entry is so low, but I'm curious of what your opinion is on that, because it might not just be erectile dysfunction, there might be some...


0:25:05.0 S1: There could be something that's causing that erectile dysfunction, and it's important to get into your uncomfortable zone and actually go in and see a physician if something is happening.


0:25:16.2 S2: Yes, so kudos to Hims and get Roman, all these companies, they really did open up access to kind of taboo medications and topics and treatments for the mass audiences, so definitely kudos, kudos to them. But at the same time, these are for-profit entities, so you go online, you fill out a questionnaire, and if you really know what you want, you can kind of fill it out in a certain way, then you quickly get an evaluation and then you get your drugs and usually in these things, it's more response, I'd say more of a subscription model, so you gotta get three months supply, where a Cialis is gonna cost you four bucks a pill, whereas you can go to your local grocery store using GoodRx. Yay, GoodRx, sponsor us! GoodRx is gonna be about a buck a pill. The biggest thing is, I think these things are great, but I see so many patients that go see these online things, get what they need, but then you're right, they're only gonna have to work up. If you're a guy in your 40s, and the only thing or only problem you have is erectile dysfunction, I'm gonna go send you to see your cardiologist to make sure your heart's okay.


0:26:24.7 S2: Early onset erectile dysfunction is a huge warning sign for cardiac disease and heart attacks in the future. I send several guys a year to the cardiologist and you'd be surprised what they find and most they don't find anything, but hey, it gives us a peace of mind. At the same time, dudes will be started on, let's say, testosterone at super high doses, and they're in their 20s and now they're having infertility, these are all things that are on there when you sign your life away on all those pages. But there's so much more to it, and yes, it's easy to do that, and it's hard to get in with someone like me, it may be a several month wait, so it sucks, and I don't know how to fill that gap, but it's possible because we have virtual visits, and you can go see a virtual primary care doctor within a healthcare organization that has consultants that can kind of help out. I think it's kind of like when it comes to your body, you can pick any car you want, I'm not gonna name any brands, but you can get the top of the line sports car to take care of you and drive you around, or you can just go for the golf cart.


0:27:34.1 S2: And I think when we take these easy ways out, like the golf cart may be great, but it's not gonna get you to your final destination, so I think this is one where even if it sucks and you're gonna suck it up, go and engage in a system that you're comfortable with number one. And there's lots of ways to make it comfortable for you, we'll go into that either now or in a different way. Go into the best first, where you're gonna have tons of resources open to you and to get evaluated.


0:28:00.6 S1: Go into the best first, did you say?


0:28:03 S2: Yeah, I would say go and if you have to wait a little bit to see a primary care doctor that’s legit, just wait.


0:28:09.6 S2: And get in there, don't just try to take the golf cart mentality where you just go online and quickly get whatever you need based on symptoms. Don't focus on the symptom, focus on you and your entire body. I think that's essential. So it's worth the wait because you only get one body.


0:28:25.5 S1: I just had this conversation with my son, so I have two boys, 18 and 16, and I'm not sure if you've heard this from guys that age, but they really think that steroids isn't a big deal, and they wanna get big and have big muscles and be studly for when they get older, right now they do. And I say there are repercussions in doing that, and I'm wondering if you can elaborate on that.


0:28:58.6 S2: I've been fortunate where I haven't had to deal with getting kids off of this stuff, I have heard stories of people being on them and with their kid, and some of the stories are pretty sad, it's kinda like you've got this peer pressure to be the best sports athlete, and then you want to appease your coach, and you want that cheerleader to look at you. I think as a kid, if you're taking steroids, that's one of the stupidest things you can do. I'd have no other way to describe it. Is it a defect on the part of you as a parent? No, 'cause sometimes you don't even know what's going on, but I think this is where it's essential, as we go off, just a quick tangent, you gotta have open communication with your kids day one. So as you mentioned like you, I'm just gonna use the words that are there and make sure that their biggest confidant is not some girl or we have to be equal here or a guy that they have a crush on, that it's always you. Steroids, yes, you can get those gains, but those are not everlasting gains. Once you stop, they're gone. But once you stop, you may have caused yourself infertility, you may have increased your risk of heart attacks and blood clots in the future.


0:30:09.4 S2: Dudes that take steroids without prescriptions and try to get big, they're taking a lot of stuff, and what's really funny is when I tell guys this they just start laughing, and I'm gonna try not to laugh. When you take steroids or exogenous testosterone like yeah, your muscles may get big and your balls are gonna shrink.


0:30:28.4 S1: It’s true, it really happens.


0:30:30.5 S2: You’re gonna have small balls. Yeah, so you may have guns, that's where you can say the beach is that way and you can move your like man boobs left and right, so do you wanna be known as the guy with the small balls? It’s true, and that's because when you take all this stuff, exogenously, your testicle thinks, “Woah, they don't need me, there's no use for me”, 'cause the testicle is where most of your testosterone is made. That’s also where your sperm is made. So if you're taking exogenous stuff, then your testicle’s gonna be like, “Alright, I don't gotta work” and it's gonna kinda shrivel up.


0:31:01.1 S1: They get lazy.


0:31:02.3 S2: They get lazy, shrivel up and say, “Buh-bye”, the testicle actually in most cases, stops producing sperm. You should not get into the habit of this now. What if you're a parent? How are you gonna know? There are kind of ways, I'm not an expert at this, but there are ways, 'cause when people are on these things, they may have mood changes, they may be super irritable, you may be like, “Yo dude, you never had acne in your life, and now you have crazy acne,” well, acne. You may notice that they're a little bit more swollen, they have fluid retention. So there's lots of different things that you can kind of look at, but I hope kids aren't doing this and if they are, then try to stop it 'cause it can be very dangerous for them now and in the future.


0:31:46.4 S1: I completely agree. I can't wait until Will Post listens to this and he hears you say that.


0:31:54.2 S2: Who's that?


0:31:54.6 S1: That's my son. 


0:31:57 S2: How old is he? 


0:31:58 S1: He's 18.


0:32:00.2 S2: 18, what does he wanna do with his life?


0:32:02.6 S1: He's gonna be a entrepreneur, finance major, entrepreneurship.


0:32:08.2 S2: You've determined that for him?


0:32:09.4 S1: No, that's what he wants to do. We just went to visit schools. I actually want him to be like finance, econ, I’m like don't be an entrepreneur. That's crazy talk. But he wants to, so we’ll see.


0:32:25.6 S2: He has to follow in your footsteps. No, I think that's good. I think you're letting him kind of flourish, like I know, we have one daughter that wants to be a lawyer, one daughter that wants to be a doctor like me, and then we got one daughter that wants to be an artist. And so when she first said that to us, me and my wife were like... But we didn't how to engage that conversation because we're thinking like, “Okay, most of the artists we know, financially, everything else may be struggling”, but then my wife looked at, well, there’s lots of artists that are thriving, they're doing better than us, so we kind of now encourage it, and let them do whatever they want, but it's hard I think being a parent. So I think if he wants to be an entrepreneur let him be an entrepreneur. I never thought I was gonna be a penis doctor.


0:33:10.9 S1: When you were 18, you weren’t like, “This is what I'm going to, this is what I’m going to pursue. Urology!”


0:33:20.0 S2: I didn't even know what urology was until med school, I didn't even know it was a specialty. I personally knew what urology was, but I didn't know what urology was. No, I didn't even know the specialty existed, 'cause every, I’m of Indian origin, I was born in New Jersey. Patients think I'm not from America, but I am from America, I was born in New Jersey. New Jersey is a state in the United States of America. I know New Yorkers kinda don't believe in that, but when I was, most of my family was either cardiologists, like heart doctors or primary care doctors, so that's all I knew. Throughout med school, you do these rotations, and I fell in love with it, and now I made a career out of it. I just wish my mom could really explain to people what I do, but it's okay. I'm a kidney doctor, I'm like, “Mom, I'm a surgeon”.


0:34:04.8 S1: Right, you're in the OR, how many days a week?


0:34:09.3 S2: About two days a week, and I'm in the clinic about two and a half days a week.


0:34:14.0 S1: We hope you enjoyed the first half of Patty’s conversation with Dr. B. Make sure to catch the second half on the next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you got a lot out of it. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you can stay up-to-date with our latest episodes. Also, you can find us on social media by searching, Checkable Health. We look forward to seeing you again soon.